LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 35

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DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 85

observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”
(Matt. 28:20). The church does not only have a man-
date, does not only have a message, but

The Gracious Lord Gave the Church a Method

by which He would win the world to Himself. The
whole world and every human being who has lived
or ever will live is the concern of our great and gracious
God. And the method by which He would win the
world that He loved is the method of teaching.

May I digress here for just a moment and tell you
that almost four decades ago the sainted Dr. Theodore
Graebner said to us in one of our classes, “Some of you
will be old and gray before you Jearn that it is a fine
art to speak and to write so that you cannot be mis-
understood.” And then he added parenthetically, “And
some of you will never learn it.” If there are thoughts
in these sermonic discourses that do not come out right,
it isn’t God’s fault. If there are expressions that are
misunderstood, it is because your essayist belongs to
the latter class of whom Doctor Graebner spoke. Per-
haps we will never learn the fine art of speaking and
writing so that no one can misunderstand us.

Now as to the problem. If the Lord chose the
method of teaching to share His thoughts with the
whole world, then what is our job? We answer, our
job is to be excruciatingly careful that we communi-
cate what God communicated to us, that we are pains-
takingly careful in the choice of every word that we
use to teach a new generation which one day will take
our place. As we teach the present generation, shep-
herd it, and lead it to the pastures of God’s holy Word,
the question remains: What did the Lord mean when
He said, “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you”?

Teachers of the Law

I would answer in the first place, He wanted His
teachers whom He sent into the world to be teachers
of the Law. He wanted His teachers to open up to the
consciousness of man what man really is. He wanted
man to understand himself. And He didn’t borrow
that idea from the Greek phrase Gnothi s’auton! Know
thyself!

He knew that in heaven the eternal plan of God
had been to create a perfect world. He knew that
God had planned to put into this perfect world a per-
fect human being. The Lord Jesus knew what had
happened to that perfect world. The Scripture even
tells us that God foresaw what would happen to His
perfect creation, that it would be corrupted, that it
would fall from God, that it would be God’s great
disappointment.

May I repeat here what I said on another occasion.
When God looked at the sun which He had created,
He did not say, “I’m sorry I made you!” God never
looked at the moon and said, “I’m sorry I created you!”
God never looked at the cattle on a thousand hills and
said, “I’m sorry I created you!” God didn’t even look
at the rodents and the serpents and the beetles and

the bugs at my feet and say, “I’m sorry I made you!”
But He looked squarely at me. What did He say?
“It repenteth Me that I have made man.” (Gen. 6:6)

There’s my distinction! It is not the universe that
is God’s great disappointment but the world within me,
the world in my heart, which always cries, “No!” when
God says “Yes!” And when God says “No!” my heart
continually cries, “Yes!” This is the great tragedy of
the world. And coupled with this tragedy is the com-
panion tragedy, that man does not recognize that he
is God’s great disappointment.

Therefore God put the church into the world to be
the teacher of the Law. “Teach them,” He said, “all
things whatsoever I have commanded you. Show man
his own heart.” That is God’s method to convince the
world of its guilt.

Teachers of the Gospel

But then show man the heart of God. That same
God who foresaw the fall of man also planned the
redemption of the fallen. Paradise lost had to become
paradise regained, but not by any cooperation of the
fallen, not by any cooperation of the dead. How can
the dead man lying in a casket accept my invitation
to dinner? How can the spiritually dead accept the in-
vitation to the feast of God unless God Himself make
alive the dead, unless God Himself bring about a res-
urrection within the heart of man? Those “dead in
trespasses and sin” become alive through the operation
of the Holy Spirit. The tool of the Spirit is the mes-
sage that man has been redeemed, not “by any works
of righteousness” which he had done but by the mercy
of God, which God demonstrated when He sent His
own Son to the cross. By faith man accepts this mes-
sage of love. This acceptance, too, is the work of God’s
Holy Spirit.

Teachers of Sanctification

And then, when God by His grace has planted faith
into the heart of man, has made him alive, converted,
regenerated him, then by His grace, too, He gives him
the power to live in sanctification, to please his God, to
walk in the ways of God. In the moment of regenera-
tion there is kindled in the heart of man a flame that
burns only for the King. Man’s lips now speak His
words. Man’s hands now handle His business. Man’s
feet now walk in His ways. Man’s eyes now shine with
the brilliant luster of love for only one, his Lord and
King.

As converted man walks through life, he always
returns to his great Teacher, who guides him, who
through His church teaches him, helping him to make
relevant the Word of God to his daily life. The con-
verted man is not the one who looks up to the heavens
and says, “I’m saved by grace, and therefore I can sit
in my rocking chair, waiting for eternity.’ But he
runs, he works, he sweats, he labors, he witnesses, he
sacrifices, he loves because he is now living in a new
life. “It is not I but Christ that liveth in me.” The
church by its teaching of sanctification shows him how